Sorry for all of the downtime today, everyone. I’m not gonna use this post to be preachy because I’m sure everyone’s heard enough of SOPA and PIPA the last 24 hours. We’ll continue on packed schedule tomorrow to make up for the blackout!
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- Heavy Blog Is Heavy
Well here we are again. I did one of these retrospective posts last year, and if nothing else it was great to see what Jimmy, myself, and the other fine chaps who help us to do what we do have managed to achieve. Before I say anything else, I’d like to thank Jimmy, Dan, Gunnar, Damien, Noyan, Evan, Cody, Mitch and Michael, as well as our since departed friends Paul, Peter, Jeff, and Tim, as well as sometimes contributors Stefan, Caleb, Ed Newman and Justin Gosnell. All those guys have been awesome, and make my time here more than worth it. Give ‘em a round of applause people!
Right, down to business: once again we gathered in a pow-wow around the communal peace-pipe (also known as Dormition….ah-ha-ha-ha!) and cast out memories back over the past twelve months; a year of some pretty astounding accomplishments if I do say so myself. Hit that jump to find out exactly what we got up to, and maybe catch up on stuff that you may have missed! After all, it’s a well known fact that it’s cooler to come to the party long after it has already started…
We might be finally bringing our online community into the real world when Heavy Blog Is Heavy and The Number Of The Blog meets up next summer for Maryland Deathfest 2012. As it stands now, Quigs and Snags from TNOTB and Noyan and I from HBIH will be in Baltimore for all four days! Now, anything could come up in the next eight months or so, but the plan is for us to meet up and enjoy the biggest death metal festival in North America. Tickets have been purchased, and we are beyond excited!
While we’re there, we hope to interview bands and review sets. I plan on doing an old-fashion personal blog on the experience, but maybe if there’s enough interest and demand, we may live-blog throughout the day. It’s up to you folks! We’re going and we have the tools to report back to you, so please let me know in the comments section below what you want and expect from us while we’re in Baltimore next May.
Want to meet up with us and hang out? Excellent! You can purchase tickets and check out all the cool details (lineup, running order, hotel and venue info) over at the Maryland Deathfest website and let us know if you plan on going! We’ll talk more about this when it gets closer to the date, but consider this a heads up. Tickets might sell out well in advance!
- JR
That’s right you bunch of mouth-breathing, gorilla-faced window lickers; I’m back! For anyone who is interested, I went to one of the rainiest places in England and had six days of solid sunshine. Suck it.
Seems like I missed some good shit. We had sixty seconds of new Mastodon that got Jimmy a bit wet in the nether regions. Aliases got covered in some sort of green Hulk-jizz. Wolves In The Throne Room released some wordy bollocks about their new album, and we learned that we are all big fucking hipsters. Big surprise.
In my eagerness to go on my first holiday in four years, I neglected to announce the winners for the “No Place Like Home” competition from a couple of weeks ago. Fear not though; the votes are in, and we’ll be announcing them a bit later.
We also started a super-exciting competition last week to win two pairs of tickets, plus a lucky meet-and-greet for Slayer and Rob Zombie‘s show in Vancouver, Canada. So, you know. Get on that.
So here we go with another week. Got some good stuff for today; enjoy!
- CG
Unsigned bands: Have an album coming out but don’t feel like going through the hassle of sending it out to dozens of blogs and websites for reviews and features? We’ve got a new service that we’re working on that will take care all of that nonsense for you. Hit us up at mail[at]heavyblogisheavy[dot]com with a link to some music, some info, and what kind of budget you’re looking at and we’ll see what we can do for you! Feel free to get in touch for more information about what we offer, and feel free to tell us what you expect.
As this is a new realm for us, we’ll only be picking up a couple of projects for the time being, so we’ll have to actually like your music. But hey, if it works out, we’ll open it back up in the future!
- JR
OVER NINE THOUSA—!!! Well, not quite that many actually, but this is a ball-rippingly huge milestone for us nevertheless – despite the knowing nods and cutesy cooing I can hear coming from some of our older brethren.
We actually hit out second birthday just over a month ago, so it’s kind of fitting. That said, we posted fuck-all for the first seven months or so of our existence, but now look at us – no fewer than twelve posts today alone!
2011 has been really kind to us so far. We’re currently averaging around 80,000 views per month which is absolutely fantastic. We hope that’s an indicator that you’ve been enjoying what we do, and that you’ll stick with us in the months to come – whatever happens!
We have actually got some exciting things in the works, but we can’t talk too much about them yet, so instead I’m going to wave my arms around wildly and point you towards our big competition this week, in which there are five copies of The Matador‘s brilliant Descent Into The Maelstrom plus a t-shirt up for grabs!
I've been looking for a chance to use this for ages
Once again, thanks from us all – Jimmy, Chris and the rest of the classy chaps at Heavy Blog.
Good morning, everyone! Hope you guys had a good weekend, and a belated happy Father’s Day to all of those fathers out there with damn fine taste in music. If you’ll notice, we’ve got a new DISQUS commenting system, which is pretty darn spiffy if I do say so myself. It should be easier to post comments; no more having to reload the page in order to reply! We also installed a caching plugin which should make the site load faster. We’ll see where it goes!
Also, if you’ll notice, we’ve updated our contacts page, extending small PR services for unsigned bands and premium ad placement. Give our contact and services page a look over.
Now onto the music! We’ve got a great week full of important releases. You can’t handle it, man. You can’t handle it. It’s just too much.
August Burns Red – Leveler (Solid State)
The Black Dahlia Murder – Ritual (Metal Blade)
Converge/Dropdead – Split (Deathwish Inc./Armageddeon Label)
The Crimson Armada – Conviction (Artery Recordings)
Death – Human [Reissue] (2-CD) (Relapse)
Dekapitator – We Will Destroy… You Will Obey! (Relapse)
Ed Gein – Bad Luck (Black Market Activities)
The Devin Townsend Project – Deconstruction (InsideOut Music)
The Devin Townsend Project – Ghost (InsideOut Music)
Fit For An Autopsy – The Process Of Human Extermination (Black Market Activities)
General Surgery – Necrology (Relapse)
Heights – Dead Ends (Mediaskare)
Helms Alee – Weatherhead (Hydra Head)
In Flames – Sounds Of A Playground Fading (Century Media)
Jungle Rot – Kill On Command (Victory)
Pain – You Only Live Twice (Nuclear Blast)
S.O.S. – I Owe You Nothing (Good Fight Music/Repear Records)
Sourvein – Black Fangs (Candlelight)
Symphony X – Iconoclast (Nuclear Blast)
Turbid North – Orogeny (Ironclad Recordings)
Voivod – Warriors Of Ice (Sonic Unyon Metal)
White Wizzard – Flying Tigers (Earache)
If there’s nothing here you enjoy, reassess your music taste.
Have a good week, folks!
- JR
I can’t believe I almost missed it! Two years ago today, I started Heavy Blog Is Heavy with a post about how disappointing Mastodon were on Letterman. Now, we’ve got over 900 likes on Facebook and we push 3,000 page views per day. Thanks for sticking around, guys!
- JR
I’ve said this on twitter and facebook, but it’s worth mentioning here again as we seem to have hit a stretch of activity.
Our web host has been having some issues with the server that HBIH is hosted on and have been working to fix it. They promise to have it fixed for good soon, so stick with us. We aren’t going to be gone forever!
Thanks!
- JR
Happy New Year, folks! Hope everyone had a fun time and stayed safe. We took it a bit easier last week, but we hope to make up for it this week, aiming to have a review ready every weekday until resources are tapped out!
I’ll take this time to announce that we have two new writers on board! I’d like to welcome Wayne and Damien to the HBIH ranks! Keep your eyes peeled for them; they’ll make their appearances shortly. This gives us 11 currently active writers/contributors. We hope to grow in the coming year and make the site better. Any advice or recommendations you’re willing to give will not fall on deaf ears!
Now as for new releases, the slow season in terms of releases still hasn’t passed. Here’s what we’ve got:
Skin Culture – The Earth Spits (Stand And Deliver)
Keith Merrow – Awaken the Stone King
Hope you folks have a good week!
- JR
